Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[GrumpyGran]

37 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"During a summer of crisis, Trump chafes against criticism and new controls"

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President Trump spent the final days of August dutifully performing his job. He tended to the massive recovery from Hurricane Harvey. He hit the road to sell his tax-cut plan. And he convened policy meetings on the federal budget and the North Korean nuclear threat.

Behind the scenes during a summer of crisis, however, Trump appears to pine for the days when the Oval Office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip, over which he presided as impresario. He fumes that he does not get the credit he thinks he deserves from the media or the allegiance from fellow Republican leaders he says he is owed. He boasts about his presidency in superlatives, but confidants privately fret about his suddenly dark moods.

And some of Trump’s friends fear that the short-tempered president is on an inevitable collision course with White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.

Trump chafes at some of the retired Marine Corps general’s moves to restrict access to him since he took the job almost a month ago, said several people close to the president. They run counter to Trump’s love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some Trump loyalists to derisively dub Kelly “the church lady” because they consider him strict and morally superior.

“He’s having a very hard time,” one friend who spoke with Trump this week said of the president. “He doesn’t like the way the media’s handling him. He doesn’t like how Kelly’s handling him. He’s turning on people that are very close to him.”

Aides say Trump admires Kelly’s credentials, respects his leadership and management skills, and praises him often, both in private meetings and at public events. In a tax policy speech Wednesday in Missouri, Trump singled out Kelly’s work to decrease the number of illegal border crossings when he was secretary of homeland security.

Meanwhile, people close to the president said he is simmering with displeasure over what he considers personal disloyalty from National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who criticized Trump’s responses to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. He also has grown increasingly frustrated with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has clashed with the president on issues including Afghanistan troop levels, the blockade on Qatar and Cuba policy.

This portrait of Trump as he enters what could be his most consequential month in office is based on interviews with 15 senior White House officials, outside advisers and friends of the president, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

In September, Trump will face deadlines to raise the federal debt ceiling and pass a spending bill possibly tied to his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border; make his first big push for tax cuts; and oversee a potentially historic disaster recovery in Texas and Louisiana.

If Trump’s 75-minute rally performance on Aug. 22 in Phoenix served as a public testimonial to his rage over the media and Congress, he is agitating privately about other concerns, as well.

Trump lashed out at George Gigicos, one of his original campaign staff members, for what the president considered unflattering television camera angles at the Phoenix rally, which Bloomberg News first reported. The president also was distressed by a New York Times report that was posted a few hours before the event documenting the turmoil between him and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Trump was especially angered by something he learned at his stop earlier in the day, a border visit in Yuma, Ariz., several of his associates said.

A group of Border Patrol agents who had endorsed him and become campaign-trail buddies initially were blocked by the Trump administration from attending. Although the agents eventually were allowed into the event, the president made his displeasure about their treatment known to Kelly, said people who were briefed about the incident. Two of those people said Trump raised his voice with his chief of staff, whom he faulted for trying to restrict outside friends from having direct access to him.

That evening in Phoenix, Trump attempted to call Kelly onto the stage. “Where’s John?” he asked. “Where is he? Where’s General Kelly? Get him out here. He’s great. He’s doing a great job.”

Kelly did not join his boss in front of the crowd.

“It is not unusual for staffers to hear him bluster about things,” said Barry Bennett, a former campaign adviser. “That doesn’t mean it’s real. There were people on the campaign staff that he said to fire a dozen times, but he never did it. It was just bark. And some people don’t know the difference between the bark and the bite.”

Kelly took the job with the express goal of implementing strict order in a West Wing that had become rife with turmoil, infighting and damaging leaks to the media.

Friends used to be able to call the White House and be patched directly through to Trump; now those calls are routed through Kelly and do not always make it to the president. Friends used to drop by the West Wing when they had time to kill, wandering to the Oval Office to say hello; now they must have an official appointment — and a clear reason — to visit.

The changes are largely welcomed by senior administration officials, who say the president’s time is too valuable to be wasted on chitchat and hangers-on.

But Trump sometimes defies — and even resents — the new structure. He has been especially sensitive to the way Kelly’s rigid structure is portrayed in the media and strives to disabuse people of the notion that he is being managed. The president continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, said people with knowledge of the calls.

“Donald Trump resists being handled,” said Roger Stone, a former Trump adviser and longtime confidant. “Nobody tells him who to see, who to listen to, what to read, what he can say.” Stone added, “General Kelly is trying to treat the president like a mushroom. Keeping him in the dark and feeding him s--- is not going to work. Donald Trump is a free spirit.”

Kelly has told colleagues that he has no intention of controlling what Trump says or tweets. Although he has tried to manage the information the president receives, Kelly recognizes that there are limits to what he can do, according to White House officials.

“The president can turn on the television, the president can call people, and the president can read the newspaper,” said a Republican close to the White House who added that the onus is on Trump, not his staff, to control his impulses.

Trump has jettisoned some of the more controversial figures in his administration this summer. For instance, the firing of Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci after just 10 days earned the flamboyant aide the moniker “suicide bomber” in the West Wing for having taken down with him Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer. Trump also parted ways with Bannon, who often channeled the president’s nationalist instincts.

More changes may be afoot under Kelly, who is continuing his personnel review and is said to be targeting aides without clear portfolios of responsibility.

On Tillerson, Trump has come to see his top diplomat’s approach to world affairs as “totally establishment,” in the words of one Trump associate. Several people close to Trump said they would be surprised if Tillerson stays in his post past his one-year mark in January. They hinted that his departure may come far sooner, with one describing it as “imminent.”

And some who have recently seen Tillerson say the former ExxonMobil chief executive — unaccustomed to taking orders from a superior, let alone one as capricious as Trump — also seems to be ready to end his State Department tenure. He has grumbled privately to Kelly about Trump’s recent controversies, said two people familiar with their relationship.

Others, however, caution that Tillerson remains fully enmeshed in the administration. After having lunch with the president Monday, Tillerson sat in the front row of Trump’s joint news conference with the president of Finland and was a key member of Cabinet discussions focused on handling Hurricane Harvey.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Wednesday that Trump “absolutely” has confidence in Tillerson.

Tillerson made headlines over the weekend when he was asked on “Fox News Sunday,” in the context of Charlottesville, whether Trump speaks for American values. “The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson told anchor Chris Wallace.

Many Trump insiders were aghast at the diplomat’s apparent denunciation of the president, but several senior White House officials said Trump’s frustration with Tillerson has been about specific policies. The Fox interview did not bother Trump, one official said, even though the president was upset about Cohn’s scolding of him to the Financial Times.

Trump was especially upset that Cohn went public with his complaints about the president’s handling of Charlottesville, even after Trump listened to Cohn vent during a private meeting on Aug. 18 in Bedminster, N.J.

The president has been quietly fuming about Cohn for the past week but has resisted dismissing him in part because he has been the face, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, of the administration’s tax-cut strategy.

Still, Trump has other ways to slight Cohn. The economic adviser traveled with Trump on Wednesday to Springfield, Mo., for his speech about tax reform, yet when the president ticked through “the many distinguished guests” in attendance, he did not mention Cohn. Afterward, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, tweeted a call for tax reform with a picture of Trump backstage flanked by her and Mnuchin. Notably absent was Cohn, the plan’s co-architect.

Asked about the perceived insults, Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One on the flight home to Washington that it was “pretty standard tactics” for Trump not to call out staff members in his remarks.

Pressed on the state of Trump and Cohn’s relationship, Sanders said only that both men are committed to tax reform.

“Well, look,” she said, “Gary is here. The president is here.”

Poor widdle TT, he doesn't like to be "managed".

What a mess. I can't imagine the stress of being involved in this circus. All to contain one person. Let's start with Sanders, I'm sick and tired of her snarky lies. She seems embedded though. I think she's a huge liability for him.

Tillerson, boy, this is not what he expected. I don't see him lasting past January when he can go while saving face. I don't think he will resign before then, he won't admit defeat.

So far Kelly has managed to make some headway but I don't think Trump's going to let him do much more. He does have some important people on his side, McMasters, Mattis, probably Ivanka. Maybe he can chip away at some of the trouble-makers.

And Pence's campaign went really well this week, so...

[onekidanddone]

Bets on if this was in InfoWars or Fox-n-Friends before his tweet?

Trump charges that Clinton email probe was ‘rigged,’ based on when Comey drafted statement about it

Quote

President Trump on Friday accused James B. Comey, the FBI director he abruptly fired in May, of exonerating Hillary Clinton before his agency’s probe into her private email server was complete, taking to Twitter to charge there is “rigged system.”

“Wow, looks like James B. Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton long before the investigation was over . . . and so much more,” Trump wrote in a morning tweet Friday. “A rigged system!”

The president seemed to be referring to a letter Sens. Lindsay O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray on Wednesday.

In their letter, the senators wrote they had recently reviewed transcripts from interviews the Office of Special Counsel conducted last fall with FBI officials as part of its inquiry into Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation. The Office of Special Counsel is not associated with Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, but an independent agency that investigates violations involving federal employees.

The examination of Comey’s work, which was closed after he was ousted from his job, began after people voiced complaints about the then-FBI director’s decision to reveal in late October that the Clinton email probe had resumed.

Because of redactions, the transcripts are somewhat murky. But they seem to show Comey’s chief of staff, Jim Rybicki, and the principal deputy general counsel of national security and cyberlaw, Trisha Anderson, confirming that Comey first contemplated a statement about closing the Clinton case in April or May of 2016.

That was before agents had interviewed Clinton and others. Comey ultimately delivered a statement indicating he was recommending the case be closed without charges — but also lambasting Clinton and her aides for their carelessness in handling classified information — days after Clinton was interviewed in early July 2016.

It is not improper or unusual for investigators and prosecutors to begin discussing how to announce the resolution of a case before it is done, particularly when an investigation has stretched for many months and its conclusion is beginning to become clear. Doing so is typically a sign of preparation, rather than operating because a probe was rigged from the start. The Clinton investigation began in July 2015.

Grassley and Graham, though, suggested in their letter that discussion of Comey’s statement before the investigation was completed was improper.

“Conclusion first, fact-gathering second — that’s no way to run an investigation,” the senators wrote. “The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy.”

Daniel Richman, a lawyer for Comey, declined to comment, as did the FBI. Anderson declined to comment, and Rybicki could not immediately be reached.

That the FBI was leaning against charges for Clinton or her aides before interviewing Clinton herself is not completely new, though the materials Grassley released offer glimpses into the behind-the-scenes discussions. The Washington Post had reported in May 2016 — before Clinton and others had talked to the FBI — that the investigation had so far found “scant evidence” that Clinton intended to break classification rules, though agents were still probing the case.

The New York Times also reported after the case had concluded that nine months into the probe, it “became clear to Mr. Comey that Mrs. Clinton was almost certainly not going to face charges.” The Times reported that Comey then began working on talking points.

No matter when a statement is drafted, it is unusual for the FBI — rather than Justice Department prosecutors — to reveal the end of a case. The FBI often recommends to prosecutors whether agents believe someone should be charged, but it is typically prosecutors who make the ultimate decision and reveal that decision publicly.

Comey’s statement, too, also offered criticism of Clinton. That is abnormal — and many lawyers have said improper — given that Clinton was not charged with a crime and thus had no opportunity to defend herself in court.

Comey has said publicly that he was moved to make the public statement in part because, not long before he did, then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch met with former president Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s husband, aboard her plane at an airport in Phoenix in late June. Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this year that the airport meeting was “the thing that capped it for me that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation.” The transcripts that Grassley released somewhat call that into question, as Comey had apparently been contemplating his public statement a month before the tarmac meeting occurred.

 

[fraurosena]

The word Trump can’t seem to get right      

Spoiler

President Trump boasted at his raucous rally in Phoenix that he “went to better schools” and “was a better student” than liberal elites — but he still struggles to spell even simple words correctly.

“Texas is heeling fast thanks to all of the great men & women who have been working so hard. But still, so much to do. Will be back tomorrow!”  Trump tweeted at 7:50 a.m. Friday in a shout-out to Hurricane Harvey rescuers.

The tweet was deleted minutes later and replaced with another that correctly spelled the word “healing.”

It was the fourth time this summer that he misspelled a version of the word.

Last month, when thousands of anti-white supremacy protesters flocked to Boston, the president wrote that “sometimes protest is needed to heel, and heel we will!”

He quickly deleted it, but posted another tweet that made the same mistake.

“Sometimes you need to protest in order to heel, & we will heel, & be stronger than ever before!”

That one was deleted as well and replaced with another with the word “heal” spelled correctly.

In the past, he also used the word “unpresidented” instead of “unprecedented” — and the topper could have been the head-scratcher “covfefe,” which many believed was supposed to be “coverage.”

Trump attended an upstate private military boarding school for high school, then spent a year at Fordham University, a selective Jesuit school in the Bronx, before finishing up at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.

And he’s never been shy when boasting about his brains on the campaign trail.

“I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me,” he said in November 2015.

“I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes,” he claimed in May 2016.

“Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump,” he said that June.

And at his Phoenix rally earlier this month, he declared, “I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were,” slamming the mainstream media and Beltway “elites.”

On the heels of his latest tweets, he's showing that he's head over heels about digging his heels in with his achilles heel, heal.

[GrumpyGran]

48 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The word Trump can’t seem to get right      

  Hide contents

President Trump boasted at his raucous rally in Phoenix that he “went to better schools” and “was a better student” than liberal elites — but he still struggles to spell even simple words correctly.

“Texas is heeling fast thanks to all of the great men & women who have been working so hard. But still, so much to do. Will be back tomorrow!”  Trump tweeted at 7:50 a.m. Friday in a shout-out to Hurricane Harvey rescuers.

The tweet was deleted minutes later and replaced with another that correctly spelled the word “healing.”

It was the fourth time this summer that he misspelled a version of the word.

Last month, when thousands of anti-white supremacy protesters flocked to Boston, the president wrote that “sometimes protest is needed to heel, and heel we will!”

He quickly deleted it, but posted another tweet that made the same mistake.

“Sometimes you need to protest in order to heel, & we will heel, & be stronger than ever before!”

That one was deleted as well and replaced with another with the word “heal” spelled correctly.

In the past, he also used the word “unpresidented” instead of “unprecedented” — and the topper could have been the head-scratcher “covfefe,” which many believed was supposed to be “coverage.”

Trump attended an upstate private military boarding school for high school, then spent a year at Fordham University, a selective Jesuit school in the Bronx, before finishing up at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.

And he’s never been shy when boasting about his brains on the campaign trail.

“I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me,” he said in November 2015.

“I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes,” he claimed in May 2016.

“Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump,” he said that June.

And at his Phoenix rally earlier this month, he declared, “I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were,” slamming the mainstream media and Beltway “elites.”

On the heels of his latest tweets, he's showing that he's head over heels about digging his heels in with his achilles heel, heal.

I hope he tweets that people should leave Melania alone about her heals.  

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why most evangelicals don’t condemn Trump"

Spoiler

Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in overwhelming numbers. Evangelical support for the president remains relatively firm; indeed, even as others criticized the president’s remarks in the wake of Charlottesville, evangelical leaders rose to the president’s defense. All of this gets under the skin of President Trump’s critics, who cannot believe that men and women who think of themselves as godly can possibly stomach Trump’s behavior. For such critics, the only possible explanation for evangelicals’ continuing faith in Trump is some combination of ignorance and hypocrisy.

Conversations with actual evangelical Christians at a recent gathering here — the Hillsboro Family Camp, where families have met annually since 1972 for four days of praise and worship — suggest a different picture. These voters — and almost all of them voted — see Trump’s flaws but perceive him as a fellow sinner willing to fight the forces of the establishment on their behalf.

Echoing the views of many present, one evangelist on hand told me Trump hasn’t let him down. The barrage of negative press hardly rattled him or most of his colleagues, who see the mainstream media as anything but friendly to their opinions and their faith.

“He has to fight all of them,” said the preacher, referring to the Democrats and the media.

Another minister told me he appreciates that Trump has no hesitation taking on “the reprobate left” that considers the president “an enemy of their established power system.”

Evangelicals do not always fit stereotypes. Among those attending the family camp were everyone from farmers, plumbers and carpenters to real-estate agents, doctors and lawyers. In the Hillsboro area, many leaders of evangelical churches serve on community boards and commissions.

Part of the decision by many evangelicals to support Trump for president was attributable to long-standing differences with liberal candidates over social issues. Evangelicals tend to share conservative positions on abortion, gun rights, border security and the fight against “radical Islamic terrorism,” as they usually make sure to phrase it. But more than anything, Trump’s specific pledges to the religious right got their attention.

So far, they think Trump has kept those promises. He has followed up with invitations to the White House, sought input on court appointments, stood firmly with Israel and signed an executive order expanding religious freedom in regard to political speech.

Another minister said he grows tired of hearing criticism of Trump on character issues. In the Bible and throughout history, “God uses rulers who aren’t themselves godly,” he said, pointing to the Old Testament example of David, a murderer and adulterer whom God later made king and eventually called “a man after my own heart.”

Aside from his more obvious outreach efforts to evangelicals, the president also sends more subtle messages on the subject of faith vs. science. For example, when Trump refuses to fully adopt the conclusion that climate change is due to man-made influences, he demonstrates an affinity with evangelical Christians who do not blindly accept every scientific theory.

Evangelicals tend to believe in biblical teachings on the origins of the universe and the advent and purpose of human life. They do not accept that their existence is nothing more than the result of a random cosmic accident, or that life is so meaningless that it ends in the grave. God created Adam and Eve, Noah built the ark, Jesus rose from the dead and heaven awaits believers. Evangelicals understand science as well as most lay people. They know many of their beliefs contradict scientific facts and theories.

They also know they are considered by many to be superstitious or ignorant for adhering to their beliefs. But they are guided by the Bible’s reminder that faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The things in which they place their faith are not demonstrable in any laboratory.

Most evangelical believers don’t condemn Trump for the litany of words or deeds that so disturb others, even when they disapprove. Probably half the people in churches across the country defined as “evangelicals” were converted from lives that were even more unprincipled than the life Trump has led. Some experienced divorces, others used foul language, and many were addicted to drugs or alcohol.

In most cases, no immediate miracle happened with regard to their behavior at the moment of their confessions of faith or their emergence from the baptismal waters. The only miracle they were promised was the application of the grace of Jesus Christ, which, under New Testament doctrine, washed away their sins. They know Donald J. Trump is not worthy of the grace of God, because neither were they — which, to them, is the mystery and beauty of this undeserved gift.

I'm going with them not caring about anyone other than themselves.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Why most evangelicals don’t condemn Trump"

  Hide contents

Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in overwhelming numbers. Evangelical support for the president remains relatively firm; indeed, even as others criticized the president’s remarks in the wake of Charlottesville, evangelical leaders rose to the president’s defense. All of this gets under the skin of President Trump’s critics, who cannot believe that men and women who think of themselves as godly can possibly stomach Trump’s behavior. For such critics, the only possible explanation for evangelicals’ continuing faith in Trump is some combination of ignorance and hypocrisy.

Conversations with actual evangelical Christians at a recent gathering here — the Hillsboro Family Camp, where families have met annually since 1972 for four days of praise and worship — suggest a different picture. These voters — and almost all of them voted — see Trump’s flaws but perceive him as a fellow sinner willing to fight the forces of the establishment on their behalf.

Echoing the views of many present, one evangelist on hand told me Trump hasn’t let him down. The barrage of negative press hardly rattled him or most of his colleagues, who see the mainstream media as anything but friendly to their opinions and their faith.

“He has to fight all of them,” said the preacher, referring to the Democrats and the media.

Another minister told me he appreciates that Trump has no hesitation taking on “the reprobate left” that considers the president “an enemy of their established power system.”

Evangelicals do not always fit stereotypes. Among those attending the family camp were everyone from farmers, plumbers and carpenters to real-estate agents, doctors and lawyers. In the Hillsboro area, many leaders of evangelical churches serve on community boards and commissions.

Part of the decision by many evangelicals to support Trump for president was attributable to long-standing differences with liberal candidates over social issues. Evangelicals tend to share conservative positions on abortion, gun rights, border security and the fight against “radical Islamic terrorism,” as they usually make sure to phrase it. But more than anything, Trump’s specific pledges to the religious right got their attention.

So far, they think Trump has kept those promises. He has followed up with invitations to the White House, sought input on court appointments, stood firmly with Israel and signed an executive order expanding religious freedom in regard to political speech.

Another minister said he grows tired of hearing criticism of Trump on character issues. In the Bible and throughout history, “God uses rulers who aren’t themselves godly,” he said, pointing to the Old Testament example of David, a murderer and adulterer whom God later made king and eventually called “a man after my own heart.”

Aside from his more obvious outreach efforts to evangelicals, the president also sends more subtle messages on the subject of faith vs. science. For example, when Trump refuses to fully adopt the conclusion that climate change is due to man-made influences, he demonstrates an affinity with evangelical Christians who do not blindly accept every scientific theory.

Evangelicals tend to believe in biblical teachings on the origins of the universe and the advent and purpose of human life. They do not accept that their existence is nothing more than the result of a random cosmic accident, or that life is so meaningless that it ends in the grave. God created Adam and Eve, Noah built the ark, Jesus rose from the dead and heaven awaits believers. Evangelicals understand science as well as most lay people. They know many of their beliefs contradict scientific facts and theories.

They also know they are considered by many to be superstitious or ignorant for adhering to their beliefs. But they are guided by the Bible’s reminder that faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The things in which they place their faith are not demonstrable in any laboratory.

Most evangelical believers don’t condemn Trump for the litany of words or deeds that so disturb others, even when they disapprove. Probably half the people in churches across the country defined as “evangelicals” were converted from lives that were even more unprincipled than the life Trump has led. Some experienced divorces, others used foul language, and many were addicted to drugs or alcohol.

In most cases, no immediate miracle happened with regard to their behavior at the moment of their confessions of faith or their emergence from the baptismal waters. The only miracle they were promised was the application of the grace of Jesus Christ, which, under New Testament doctrine, washed away their sins. They know Donald J. Trump is not worthy of the grace of God, because neither were they — which, to them, is the mystery and beauty of this undeserved gift.

I'm going with them not caring about anyone other than themselves.

Opportunist hypocrites. If I did what Trump has done and then used the excuses they use for him, they'd tell me I was going to hell and wouldn't let me near their children or in their homes, unless it was for an intervention. The only difference is I can't do anything for them and I won't pander to them to give them a sense of legitimacy.

[Cartmann99]

45 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Opportunist hypocrites. If I did what Trump has done and then used the excuses they use for him, they'd tell me I was going to hell and wouldn't let me near their children or in their homes, unless it was for an intervention. The only difference is I can't do anything for them and I won't pander to them to give them a sense of legitimacy.

If you were a female Trump, they'd be screaming 24/7 about your sexual immorality.

[47of74]

52 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Opportunist hypocrites. If I did what Trump has done and then used the excuses they use for him, they'd tell me I was going to hell and wouldn't let me near their children or in their homes, unless it was for an intervention. The only difference is I can't do anything for them and I won't pander to them to give them a sense of legitimacy.

I've probably said this before, but the Evangelical support of fuck face sometimes makes me want to ditch organized religion altogether.  But if I and others who feel as I do were to leave it would just be handing over Christianity to fuck face supporters who would pervert it even more for their evil ends.  

[47of74]

Uh oh.  I sense a 3am tweet storm a brewing...

Quote

The Justice Department said in a court filing Friday evening that it has no evidence to support President Donald Trump's assertion in March that his predecessor, Barack Obama, wiretapped the phones in Trump Tower before last year's election.

"Both FBI and NSD confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets," the department's motion reads. NSD refers to the department's national security division.

The motion came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by a group pushing for government transparency, American Oversight.

On March 4, Trump tweeted: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

 

[Howl]

On 9/1/2017 at 10:36 AM, GrumpyGran said:

So far Kelly has managed to make some headway but I don't think Trump's going to let him do much more. He does have some important people on his side, McMasters, Mattis, probably Ivanka. Maybe he can chip away at some of the trouble-makers.

Bannon and the utterly noxious fake Gorka have left the building and that is no small thing.  Apparently, Gorka was shown the door and not allowed back in.  

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Bannon and the utterly noxious fake Gorka have left the building and that is no small thing.  Apparently, Gorka was shown the door and not allowed back in.  

I read an article about Gorka in Rolling Stone last week and he is a scary man. Power-mad, delusional, petty, deceptive. He needs to be deported.

[GreyhoundFan]

"In action after action, Trump appeals primarily to his dwindling base"

Spoiler

President Trump pardoned a tough-on-immigration Arizona sheriff accused of racial profiling. He threatened a government shutdown if Congress won’t deliver border wall funding. He banned transgender people from serving in the military. And he is openly contemplating ending a program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants who consider the United States home.

These and other moves — all since Trump’s widely repudiated remarks about the hate-fueled violence in Charlottesville less than a month ago — are being heartily cheered by many of his core supporters. But collectively, they have helped cement an image of a president, seven months into his term, who is playing only to his political base.

Trump’s job-approval numbers remain mired in the 30s in most polls, and several new findings last week gave Republicans interested in expanding the party’s appeal fresh reason to worry. A Fox News survey, for example, found that majorities of voters think that Trump is “tearing the country apart” and does not respect racial minorities.

The findings come ahead of what could be another turbulent stretch in Trump’s presidency. He and Congress are seeking this month to keep the government funded and raise the nation’s debt ceiling, amid a Russia probe that is gaining steam and continuing feuds between Trump and fellow Republicans.

In interviews, White House aides and advisers played down concerns about Trump’s standing in the polls, with some suggesting his numbers are more a reflection of broader disgust with Washington. Some also said it is important to keep Trump’s base energized at a time when he has yet to deliver on legislative promises and has seen some erosion among key constituencies, including working-class whites.

At the same time, Trump allies pointed to his visits to areas ravaged by Hurricane Harvey — the latest on Saturday as he sought to show empathy for victims and emergency responders in Texas and Louisiana — as evidence of a president seeking to unite the country. The crisis in North Korea presents another test of Trump’s ability to bring the nation together.

And heading into the fall, Trump aides and advisers argue that a major push for tax cuts has the potential to boost Trump’s standing among Americans well beyond his base. Though there is no concrete plan and many thorny issues remain, Republicans in Congress are hoping to rally behind legislation that would demonstrate an ability to govern that so far has been elusive during Trump’s tenure.

“Voters are very skeptical it will happen,” said Tony Fabrizio, who served as Trump’s pollster during last year’s election. “If the president can get a tax-reform package passed, it will confound their expectations and be a huge win.”

Trump plans to pitch the idea of tax legislation this week in North Dakota, marking the second trip in as many weeks aimed at building momentum for both corporate and personal income tax cuts. Both this visit and one last week to Missouri are being staged in states Trump won last year and where there is a Democratic senator whose support could be crucial to the fate of any legislation.

For an un­or­tho­dox president, such trips are fairly traditional ways to build pressure on Congress to act and have given more mainstream Republicans some reason for hope about Trump’s engagement following the GOP failure to pass health-care legislation.

In the meantime, though, many in the GOP are openly questioning Trump’s words and actions on issues that are divisive, even among Republicans. Trump’s assertion that many “fine people” marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville drew condemnation across party lines.

And some in the GOP say other recent choices appear designed to bolster the president’s standing only among his most loyal supporters. In recent weeks, Trump has continued his practice of holding campaign-style rallies in states he won, creating an echo chamber of support with his most loyal backers.

“It’s almost as if he’s the pilot of a plane that’s in a terrible downward spiral and he’s insisting on continuing to do things to make it worse,” said John Weaver, who was chief strategist for the 2016 presidential campaign of Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio). “You can’t govern like that, and you can’t win reelection like that, and you can’t take your party into the 2018 midterms like that.”

Recent polling has underscored the narrow band of support Trump enjoys for some of the policies he is advocating.

Only 34 percent said Trump did the right thing by pardoning former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, while 60 percent said he did the wrong thing, according to an NBC/SurveyMonkey poll released last week. Arpaio, a major Trump booster during last year’s campaign, was convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

In the same survey, only 30 percent said they oppose the policy begun under President Barack Obama that has provided two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 immigrants known as “Dreamers” who have been in the country illegally since they were children. Sixty-four percent voiced support for the policy, which Trump has threatened to dismantle. He plans to announce his intentions on Tuesday.

Some leading Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), on Friday urged Trump not to rescind the program.

Speaking more broadly, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said that Trump “is a president for all Americans, and his agenda reflects that.”

“This fall, he will be focused on funding recovery efforts for Texas and Louisiana following Hurricane Harvey and bringing real tax relief to American families,” she said. “He’s also been focused on renegotiating unfair trade deals, rebuilding our nation’s military and many issues that all Americans, regardless of their party identification or who they voted for, can get behind.”

Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken actions with little crossover appeal to Democrats or independents but strongly backed by Trump voters, including efforts to ban entry to the United States from a group of majority-Muslim countries and pull out of the Paris climate change accord.

Polls have also showed majorities of Republicans favoring a border wall but only small percentages of Democrats in support. In the Fox News poll, only 18 percent of overall voters thought it was a good idea to shut down government to force the issue — an idea Trump appears to have backed away from, at least for now.

Trump boosters say he is merely following through on his campaign promises.

“He is part of his base,” said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who advised Trump during the general election. “When he does these things, the base likes it, but he’s doing it because he believes it.”

Others suggest there is more political calculation involved.

“He’s stoking his base with rhetorical messaging in part because it’s taking longer than hoped to get some of his major campaign promises checked off,” said one Republican strategist close to the White House, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump associates say it’s also important to keep the base energized so that they turn out for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections and for Trump’s reelection bid. Some of Trump’s supporters last year were not regular voters.

Trump’s job approval rating dipped to 34 percent last week in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, matching his low mark for the year. Recent polls have showed erosion among Republicans and subgroups such as white working-class voters, who were key to Trump’s election last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton. A poll by Fabrizio’s firm, for example, showed the number of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance rising from 19 percent in June to 25 percent in August.

Fabrizio, who said he has not done work for Trump since the election, characterized the erosion as “negligible” and pointed to a Fox News finding that 96 percent of Trump voters remain satisfied with their vote from last year. That is higher than the 93 percent of Clinton voters who remain satisfied.

Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster and strategist, argued that after an uptick following the election, Trump’s favorability has basically fallen back to where it was during a campaign season in which voters faced a choice between two largely unpopular candidates.

The good news for Trump, Goeas suggested, is that many people who don’t like Trump are turned off by his personality rather than the issues he’s pushing. That creates the possibility of broader acceptance if he’s successful in pushing tax cuts.

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said the deterioration in Trump’s overall job approval has been fairly typical of recent presidents during their opening stretch in office. What’s different, he said, is that Trump started from a much lower point that other presidents.

Even Trump’s detractors acknowledge that he seems to have a core group of supporters unlikely to abandon him regardless of what transpires in Washington. That in part explains Trump’s frequent travel for campaign-style rallies, said Rick Wilson, a GOP strategist and frequent Trump critic.

“There’s nothing he’s got right now except adulation from his base,” Wilson said. “He could eat a live baby on stage and they’d forgive him. He can do no wrong.”

A Monmouth University poll released last month showed about a quarter of respondents saying that not only do they approve of Trump, but that they also “cannot see Trump doing anything that would make them disapprove of him.”

Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant, said Trump appears to be battening down with his base in anticipation of fallout from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election. If things get rough for Trump, the defense of core supporters becomes even more crucial, she said.

“If you look at it through that lens, it makes sense,” Marsh said. “Any other president would have spent their time trying to expand their support.”

Sadly, the article is correct. He only cares about his base and his base won't abandon him. The baby-eating image is disturbing.

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sadly, the article is correct. He only cares about his base and his base won't abandon him. The baby-eating image is disturbing.

If you really want to be disturbed, think how Trump's fans would react if he told them that the baby was President Obama's grandchild. 

 

 

 

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"In action after action, Trump appeals primarily to his dwindling base"

  Reveal hidden contents

President Trump pardoned a tough-on-immigration Arizona sheriff accused of racial profiling. He threatened a government shutdown if Congress won’t deliver border wall funding. He banned transgender people from serving in the military. And he is openly contemplating ending a program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants who consider the United States home.

These and other moves — all since Trump’s widely repudiated remarks about the hate-fueled violence in Charlottesville less than a month ago — are being heartily cheered by many of his core supporters. But collectively, they have helped cement an image of a president, seven months into his term, who is playing only to his political base.

Trump’s job-approval numbers remain mired in the 30s in most polls, and several new findings last week gave Republicans interested in expanding the party’s appeal fresh reason to worry. A Fox News survey, for example, found that majorities of voters think that Trump is “tearing the country apart” and does not respect racial minorities.

The findings come ahead of what could be another turbulent stretch in Trump’s presidency. He and Congress are seeking this month to keep the government funded and raise the nation’s debt ceiling, amid a Russia probe that is gaining steam and continuing feuds between Trump and fellow Republicans.

In interviews, White House aides and advisers played down concerns about Trump’s standing in the polls, with some suggesting his numbers are more a reflection of broader disgust with Washington. Some also said it is important to keep Trump’s base energized at a time when he has yet to deliver on legislative promises and has seen some erosion among key constituencies, including working-class whites.

At the same time, Trump allies pointed to his visits to areas ravaged by Hurricane Harvey — the latest on Saturday as he sought to show empathy for victims and emergency responders in Texas and Louisiana — as evidence of a president seeking to unite the country. The crisis in North Korea presents another test of Trump’s ability to bring the nation together.

And heading into the fall, Trump aides and advisers argue that a major push for tax cuts has the potential to boost Trump’s standing among Americans well beyond his base. Though there is no concrete plan and many thorny issues remain, Republicans in Congress are hoping to rally behind legislation that would demonstrate an ability to govern that so far has been elusive during Trump’s tenure.

“Voters are very skeptical it will happen,” said Tony Fabrizio, who served as Trump’s pollster during last year’s election. “If the president can get a tax-reform package passed, it will confound their expectations and be a huge win.”

Trump plans to pitch the idea of tax legislation this week in North Dakota, marking the second trip in as many weeks aimed at building momentum for both corporate and personal income tax cuts. Both this visit and one last week to Missouri are being staged in states Trump won last year and where there is a Democratic senator whose support could be crucial to the fate of any legislation.

For an un­or­tho­dox president, such trips are fairly traditional ways to build pressure on Congress to act and have given more mainstream Republicans some reason for hope about Trump’s engagement following the GOP failure to pass health-care legislation.

In the meantime, though, many in the GOP are openly questioning Trump’s words and actions on issues that are divisive, even among Republicans. Trump’s assertion that many “fine people” marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville drew condemnation across party lines.

And some in the GOP say other recent choices appear designed to bolster the president’s standing only among his most loyal supporters. In recent weeks, Trump has continued his practice of holding campaign-style rallies in states he won, creating an echo chamber of support with his most loyal backers.

“It’s almost as if he’s the pilot of a plane that’s in a terrible downward spiral and he’s insisting on continuing to do things to make it worse,” said John Weaver, who was chief strategist for the 2016 presidential campaign of Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio). “You can’t govern like that, and you can’t win reelection like that, and you can’t take your party into the 2018 midterms like that.”

Recent polling has underscored the narrow band of support Trump enjoys for some of the policies he is advocating.

Only 34 percent said Trump did the right thing by pardoning former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, while 60 percent said he did the wrong thing, according to an NBC/SurveyMonkey poll released last week. Arpaio, a major Trump booster during last year’s campaign, was convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.

In the same survey, only 30 percent said they oppose the policy begun under President Barack Obama that has provided two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 immigrants known as “Dreamers” who have been in the country illegally since they were children. Sixty-four percent voiced support for the policy, which Trump has threatened to dismantle. He plans to announce his intentions on Tuesday.

Some leading Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), on Friday urged Trump not to rescind the program.

Speaking more broadly, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said that Trump “is a president for all Americans, and his agenda reflects that.”

“This fall, he will be focused on funding recovery efforts for Texas and Louisiana following Hurricane Harvey and bringing real tax relief to American families,” she said. “He’s also been focused on renegotiating unfair trade deals, rebuilding our nation’s military and many issues that all Americans, regardless of their party identification or who they voted for, can get behind.”

Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken actions with little crossover appeal to Democrats or independents but strongly backed by Trump voters, including efforts to ban entry to the United States from a group of majority-Muslim countries and pull out of the Paris climate change accord.

Polls have also showed majorities of Republicans favoring a border wall but only small percentages of Democrats in support. In the Fox News poll, only 18 percent of overall voters thought it was a good idea to shut down government to force the issue — an idea Trump appears to have backed away from, at least for now.

Trump boosters say he is merely following through on his campaign promises.

“He is part of his base,” said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who advised Trump during the general election. “When he does these things, the base likes it, but he’s doing it because he believes it.”

Others suggest there is more political calculation involved.

“He’s stoking his base with rhetorical messaging in part because it’s taking longer than hoped to get some of his major campaign promises checked off,” said one Republican strategist close to the White House, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump associates say it’s also important to keep the base energized so that they turn out for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections and for Trump’s reelection bid. Some of Trump’s supporters last year were not regular voters.

Trump’s job approval rating dipped to 34 percent last week in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, matching his low mark for the year. Recent polls have showed erosion among Republicans and subgroups such as white working-class voters, who were key to Trump’s election last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton. A poll by Fabrizio’s firm, for example, showed the number of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance rising from 19 percent in June to 25 percent in August.

Fabrizio, who said he has not done work for Trump since the election, characterized the erosion as “negligible” and pointed to a Fox News finding that 96 percent of Trump voters remain satisfied with their vote from last year. That is higher than the 93 percent of Clinton voters who remain satisfied.

Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster and strategist, argued that after an uptick following the election, Trump’s favorability has basically fallen back to where it was during a campaign season in which voters faced a choice between two largely unpopular candidates.

The good news for Trump, Goeas suggested, is that many people who don’t like Trump are turned off by his personality rather than the issues he’s pushing. That creates the possibility of broader acceptance if he’s successful in pushing tax cuts.

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said the deterioration in Trump’s overall job approval has been fairly typical of recent presidents during their opening stretch in office. What’s different, he said, is that Trump started from a much lower point that other presidents.

Even Trump’s detractors acknowledge that he seems to have a core group of supporters unlikely to abandon him regardless of what transpires in Washington. That in part explains Trump’s frequent travel for campaign-style rallies, said Rick Wilson, a GOP strategist and frequent Trump critic.

“There’s nothing he’s got right now except adulation from his base,” Wilson said. “He could eat a live baby on stage and they’d forgive him. He can do no wrong.”

A Monmouth University poll released last month showed about a quarter of respondents saying that not only do they approve of Trump, but that they also “cannot see Trump doing anything that would make them disapprove of him.”

Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant, said Trump appears to be battening down with his base in anticipation of fallout from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election. If things get rough for Trump, the defense of core supporters becomes even more crucial, she said.

“If you look at it through that lens, it makes sense,” Marsh said. “Any other president would have spent their time trying to expand their support.”

Sadly, the article is correct. He only cares about his base and his base won't abandon him. The baby-eating image is disturbing.

How long will these idiots keep sacrificing their reputations for this snake oil salesman? I know they cling to each other like a cult but outside of their covens, people think they're nuts. Jobs will start falling away, more family members will back away.If he keeps making excuses for the failed promises, won't they eventually get tired of him?

It begs the question, do they really want results or are they just infatuated with an over-grown bully?

[candygirl200413]

My heart dropped again:

Trump has decided to end DACA, with 6-month delay

Quote

President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises.

The administration’s deliberations on the issue have been fluid and fast moving, and the president has faced strong warnings from members of his own party not to scrap the program.

Trump has wrestled for months with whether to do away with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. But conversations with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued that Congress — rather than the executive branch — is responsible for writing immigration law, helped persuade the president to terminate the program and kick the issue to Congress, the two sources said.

In a nod to reservations held by many lawmakers, the White House plans to delay the enforcement of the president’s decision for six months, giving Congress a window to act, according to one White House official. But a senior White House aide said that chief of staff John Kelly, who has been running the West Wing policy process on the issue, “thinks Congress should’ve gotten its act together a lot longer ago.”

White House aides caution that — as with everything in the Trump White House — nothing is set in stone until an official announcement has been made.

Trump is expected to formally make that announcement on Tuesday, and the White House informed House Speaker Paul Ryan of the president’s decision on Sunday morning, according to a source close to the administration. Ryan had said during a radio interview on Friday that he didn’t think the president should terminate DACA, and that Congress should act on the issue.

A spokesman for Ryan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, “A decision is not finalized. We will make an announcement on Tuesday.”

The president’s expected decision is likely to shore up his base, which rallied behind his broader campaign message about the importance of enforcing the country’s immigration laws and securing the border. At the same time, the president’s decision is likely to be one of the most contentious of his early administration, opposed by leaders of both parties and by the political establishment more broadly.

The White House and Congress have tried to pass the issue off on each other – with each arguing that the other is responsible for determining the fate of the approximately 800,000 undocumented immigrants who are benefiting from DACA. Though most Republicans believe that rolling back DACA is a solid legal decision, they are conscious of the difficult emotional terrain. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch joined Ryan in cautioning Trump against rolling back the program.

The president is likely to couch his decision in legalese. Many on the right, even those who support protections for children brought into the country illegally through no fault of their own, argue that DACA is unconstitutional because former President Barack Obama carried it out unilaterally instead of working through Congress.

Some Republican lawmakers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have said that Congress needs to pass a law to protect the so-called Dreamers.

“My hope is that as part of this process we can work on a way to deal with this issue and solve it through legislation, which is the right way to do it and the constitutional way to do it,” Rubio told CNN in June.

Trump’s expected decision to scrap DACA within six months represents another challenge for Ryan and fellow congressional Republicans, who are facing an end-of-September deadline to avert a government shutdown and government debt default, while also tackling a Hurricane Harvey relief package and a major tax reform push.

It’s not clear that Congress will be able to come to an agreement on the future of DACA.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who previously said he was very disappointed by Trump’s lack of action on DACA, expressed fresh frustration on Sunday night with the idea of a delayed implementation.

“Ending DACA now gives chance 2 restore Rule of Law. Delaying so R Leadership can push Amnesty is Republican suicide,” King tweeted.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who has called on Trump to stand up for the Dreamers, tweeted out her displeasure with Trump’s expected announcement.

“After teasing #Dreamers for months with talk of his 'great heart,' @POTUS slams door on them. Some 'heart'...” she wrote.

This fucking POS. So much has made me upset but this has been one of the main issues that has really upset me. Fuck him so much.

[Howl]

There is so much viciousness cruelty  inherent in this decision.  Here's an interesting article from Christianity Today (Sept. 1), ahead of what we now know is Trump's decision:

Quote

Conservative Christians defend Dreamers as President prepares to modify or drop DACA.

Some Christians fear their pastors, ministry partners, and fellow churchgoers could be deported if President Donald Trump ends federal programs granting legal status to immigrants who came to the United States as children.

...the President is expected to soon tighten or terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has allowed 800,000 “Dreamers” over the past five years to work and attend school without the threat of deportation.

Among them are many young church leaders. Hispanic Americans are one of the fastest-growing demographics in evangelicalism, surging in Pentecostal and Assemblies of God traditions as well as among Southern Baptists, where a majority of new church plants are now non-white.

Full text here: Evangelicals to Trump: Don’t Deport Our Next Generation of Church Leaders

There are so many of these kids.  It tears at my heart to think of them departed to what is for them an alien culture when some do not even speak Spanish.  What Trump is doing is trying to kick this over to Congress, so he can throw red meat to appease the base, and make Congress take the heat.  However, anyone who is not the base knows exactly how heartless and cruel it is to end DACA, leaving congress critters to sniff the wind, desperately trying to figure out what the hell to do.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Another great one from Jennifer Rubin: "Ending DACA would be Trump’s most evil act"

Spoiler

The Post reports:

President Trump is expected to phase out the Obama-era program that grants work permits to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, but delay its end for six months to give Congress time to pass legislation to replace it, according to multiple people briefed on the president’s discussions.

Trump’s plan remains fluid and could change, however, and administration officials stressed Sunday evening that the president has not finalized his decision. The White House has scheduled an announcement for Tuesday.

Some in the media take seriously the notion that he is “conflicted” or “wrestling” with the decision, as though Trump were engaged in a great moral debate. That would be a first for Trump, who counts only winners and losers, never bothering with moral principles or democratic norms. The debate, if there is one, is over whether to disappoint his rapid anti-immigrant base or to, as is his inclination, double down on a losing hand.

The instantaneous backlash on social media Sunday night was a preview of the floodgates of anger that Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would open. Both Democrats and Republicans have urged him not to end the program; about 70 percent of voters in most polls favor keeping the program. Trump, who likes to think of himself as someone with “heart,” may yet decide to reverse course. If he does not, let’s get a few things straight.

First, let’s not think Trump — who invites cops to abuse suspects, who thinks ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio was “doing his job” when denying others their constitutional rights and who issued the Muslim ban — cares about the Constitution (any of the “twelve” articles). Trump says, “We love the dreamers. … We think the dreamers are terrific.” But in fact he loves the applause he derives from his cultist followers more than anything. Otherwise he’d go to the mat to defend the dreamers and secure their legal status.

To begin with, surely Trump could talk the nine Republicans attorneys general out of the suit they are contemplating, or at least try his hand in court (as he has done repeatedly with the Muslim ban and sanctuary city order). In any event, he could wait for a final adverse ruling that could be months or years from now rather than end the executive order on his own. Needless to say, longtime anti-immigrant extremists Attorney General Jeff Sessions and senior adviser Stephen Miller have no interest in explaining any of that to the president. (When a president is as thoroughly ignorant and non-analytical as this one is, his aides have ample opportunity to lead him around by the nose.)

Moreover, if Trump really thought he had to end DACA for constitutional reasons, how can he justify a six-month extension? (Why not 12 months? Two years?) And surely, if he really wanted Congress to act, he could insist it be tied (like Harvey funding) to the debt ceiling or, alternatively, to the funding bill to keep the government operating.

No, if Trump cancels DACA, it will be one more attempt to endear himself to his shrinking base with the only thing that truly energizes the dead-enders: vengeance fueled by white grievance. And it will also be an act of uncommon cowardice. (“Should Trump move forward with this decision, he would effectively be buying time and punting responsibility to Congress to determine the fate of the Dreamers,” writes The Post.) Dumping it into the lap of the hapless Congress, he can try evading responsibility for the deportation of nearly 800,000 young people who were brought here as children, 91 percent of whom are working. (And if by chance Congress should save DACA, it will be Trump who is the villain and they the saviors, an odd political choice for a president who cares not one wit about the party.)

As for Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who talks about sparing the dreamers, will be sorely tested to overcome the objections of the hard-line anti-immigrant voices in his conference. Does he have the nerve to bring to the floor a bill that lacks majority support among Republicans? Tie it to a must-pass bill (e.g., Harvey funding, the debt ceiling, funding for the government)? In the Senate, will opportunistic right-wingers such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) grandstand, perhaps filibustering a measure into order to out-Trump Trump?

However this turns out, the GOP under Trump has defined itself as the white grievance party — bluntly, a party fueled by concocted white resentment aimed at minorities. Of all the actions Trump has taken, none has been as cruel, thoughtless or divisive as deporting hundreds of thousands of young people who’ve done nothing but go to school, work hard and present themselves to the government.

The party of Lincoln has become the party of Charlottesville, Arpaio, DACA repeal and the Muslim ban. Embodying the very worst sentiments and driven by irrational anger, it deserves not defense but extinction.

I swear, we can't go a whole day without some major fiasco, misstep, or outrage from the tangerine toddler.

[fraurosena]

The presidunce doens't even realize that his security agenda is at odds with his trade agenda.
Then again, it seems his agenda on any subject is simply to antagonize as much as possible, so... yeah. 

Why Trump, After North Korea’s Test, Aimed His Sharpest Fire at the South

Spoiler

While the world agonized over the huge nuclear test in North Korea this weekend, President Trump aimed his most pointed rhetorical fire not at the renegade regime in Pyongyang, but at America’s closest partner in confronting the crisis: South Korea.

In taking to Twitter to accuse Seoul of “appeasement,” Mr. Trump was venting his frustration at a new liberal South Korean government he sees as both soft on North Korea’s atomic program and resistant to his demand for an overhaul of trade practices that he views as cheating American workers and companies.

For Mr. Trump, the crisis lays bare how his trade agenda — the bedrock of his economic populist campaign in 2016 — is increasingly at odds with the security agenda he has pursued as president. It is largely a problem of Mr. Trump’s own making. Unlike several of his predecessors, who were able to press countries on trade issues while cooperating with them on security, Mr. Trump has explicitly linked the two, painting himself into a corner.

The president, known for fighting his political wars simultaneously on multiple fronts, seems intent on taking on all comers in Asia. The president on Sunday took a somewhat milder jab at another country he sees as an adversary on trade, China, saying the North was an “embarrassment” to Beijing, its primary economic patron.

The president took a harder line later in the day, saying he was considering the drastic step of “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea,” but he did not single out China by name.

Thus, what was supposed to be a calm holiday weekend dissolved into jitters over a dual threat: the specter of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, and the possibility of an economic standoff among world powers, as Mr. Trump considers walking away from a major trade agreement with South Korea as early as this week.

Administration officials said Mr. Trump’s attack-on-all-fronts approach was necessary to keep the pressure on adversaries and allies alike. But outside observers saw a danger in Mr. Trump’s efforts to fulfill a core populist campaign promise on trade even as he tried to use the issue as leverage on security matters.

“In a circumstance where we’re going to need close cooperation with not only South Korea but China as well, he’s coming out swinging at all of them rather than trying to build support and coordination,” said Ely Ratner, a top national security official in the Obama administration. “It just looks so haphazard.”

Still, Mr. Ratner said North Korea’s latest nuclear test could finally spur China, which views nuclear tests as far more serious than the North’s series of ballistic missile launches, to undertake a more serious crackdown on its neighbor.

“I think the nuclear test has a chance of pushing China into a place it’s never been before,” Mr. Ratner said.

In a salvo of Twitter messages over six hours on Sunday, Mr. Trump called North Korea’s biggest nuclear test to date “very hostile and dangerous.” In invoking South Korean “appeasement,” he criticized Seoul’s proposal to hold military talks with the North, saying of Pyongyang, “they only understand one thing” — meaning the threat of military force.

The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said that he planned to draft a new sanctions package that would cut economic ties with anyone who did business with North Korea.

“There’s a lot we can do to cut them off economically, much more than we’ve done,” Mr. Mnuchin said, speaking on “Fox News Sunday.” He called Pyongyang’s actions “unacceptable” and stressed the need for stronger steps.

Mr. Trump’s threat to halt trade went much further, suggesting a move that would dramatically intensify the potential for conflict with China, which accounts for roughly 85 percent of all trade with the North.

Some critics dismissed the president’s suggestion as an empty threat, because, if carried out, it would most likely prompt an immediate legislative remedy by congressional leaders from both parties.

But it was a hit with Mr. Trump’s target domestic audience.

Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s ousted chief strategist, said he had pushed for a tougher stance toward China in the weeks before he left the administration, casting Mr. Trump’s threats as a victory for the economic nationalists over the globalists. Until now, he said, his fear was that the White House debate was going to be won by what he called “rational accommodationists” toward China.

“This is 100 percent about China,” Mr. Bannon said. “You’ve got to sanction the Chinese companies and Chinese financial institutions.”

Earlier this year, as tensions with North Korea flared, Mr. Trump met with President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, and decided to back off labeling China as a currency manipulator in return for Mr. Xi’s support in pressuring Pyongyang.

That quid pro quo, critics said, deprived him of leverage after it became clear that the Chinese government was not going to radically shift either its North Korean or trade policies. And it left Mr. Trump deeply frustrated, officials said, especially after his aides also persuaded him to delay action against steel imports, which would have targeted China, South Korea, Japan and other exporters.

While Mr. Trump’s policy toward China will have the greatest long-term geopolitical implications, it was Mr. Trump’s caustic attack on South Korea’s leadership on Sunday that took many observers by surprise.

South Korean officials, in a shift from the previous conservative government, have called for increased negotiations with the North as a way of defusing the escalating tensions on the tinderbox Korean Peninsula. Mr. Trump warned last week that “talking is not the answer.”

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Mr. Trump last spoke on Friday to discuss the trade situation, but have not talked since the atomic test, said an administration official with knowledge of the call.

Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department nonproliferation expert, said Mr. Trump’s criticism of the South Korean leader was misguided.

“Moon has actually been very supportive of the U.S. approach of maximum pressure and engagement,” Mr. Einhorn said. “Nothing he’s done so far smacks of appeasement.”

Mr. Trump’s greatest frustration with Mr. Moon, White House aides said, is an escalating dispute over South Korea’s chronic trade surplus with the United States, a topic very much on Mr. Trump’s mind as his poll numbers slide in industrial Midwestern states.

On Saturday, before the nuclear test, senior administration officials confirmed that they were considering withdrawing from United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement over what they believed was Seoul’s pursuit of unfair protectionist policies that had harmed the American auto and steel industries.

“I don’t think that would be good in any circumstances,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Now it’s particularly troubling, given what South Korea is faced with.”

But Mr. Trump’s decision to take aim at South Korea was as much a function of his bruising political style as his policy preferences. The president’s brand is based on projecting strength, and since he could not throw a real punch at Pyongyang, Seoul was the logical target, said a member of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy team.

Mr. Trump’s aides have tried to temper his tweets on North Korea, urging him to use his cabinet or communications staff to transmit the toughest threats to Pyongyang. He has been clearing many — but not all — of his policy-related tweets through his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly. His messaging on Sunday was in line with that of his national security staff, a senior administration official said.

The toughest talk came from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who said the United States would answer any threat from the North with a “massive” military response.

The president, asked as he left a church service whether he planned to attack North Korea, said, “We’ll see.”

"Mr. Trump's aides have tried to temper his tweets on North Korea [...]" 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A great op-ed from the NYT: "In Defense of the Truth"

Spoiler

Once again: Donald Trump is a liar.

The Department of Justice confirmed in a Friday court filing what we all knew to be true: that Trump’s slanderous assertion on Twitter in March that President Barack Obama had Trump’s “ ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower” just before the election was in fact a total fabrication.

According to the filing, both the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice’s National Security Division “confirm that they have no records related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets.”

To some this lying may seem small, just another defect among many, but to me it is so much more. Honesty is the foundation of character. The truth is the common base from which all else is built.

And yet, this man feels completely unbound by it. He has no respect or reverence for it. For him, honesty is an option, one that he feels no compunction to choose.

Before Trump’s bigotry, race-baiting, misogyny, corruption, bullying and vindictiveness, there is the lying. One could even argue that the lying is a core component of all the rest.

Of the statements by Trump that the fact-checking site PolitiFact has checked, just 5 percent were deemed absolutely true. Another 26 percent were just “mostly true” or “half true.” But a whopping 69 percent were found to be “mostly false,” “false” or “pants on fire,” the site’s worst rating.

Indeed, it seems that every major publication has taken a stab at trying to chronicle and explain Trump’s lying.

The Washington Post calculated that Trump made 492 false or misleading statements in his first 100 days — “That’s an average of 4.9 claims a day” — and that there were only 10 days without a single false claim. There were five days with 20 or more false claims.

But Politico may have been the most insightful. In an article there, Maria Konnikova pointed out in February that all presidents lie — all people lie — “but Donald Trump is in a different category.” She continued:

“The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it.”

Citing the work of Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Konnikova gave this glib assessment of how the brain deals with all this lying:

“Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream, and Trump, we know, lies constantly, about matters as serious as the election results and as trivial as the tiles at Mar-a-Lago.”

She continued: “When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything. It’s called cognitive load — our limited cognitive resources are overburdened. It doesn’t matter how implausible the statements are; throw out enough of them, and people will inevitably absorb some. Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true.”

Trump is quite literally overwhelming our human capacities with his mendacity. It is not only hard to imagine that any person could lie this much — let alone the leader of the free world — it is also impossible for us to keep pace.

There a strong impulse, I believe, in each of us struggling against fatigue, to register the pattern and manage expectations. We begin to build into our processing of politics the caveat: Yes, the “president” lies. That’s not new. That’s just what he does.

But we must resist that impulse. It makes normal, or at least rational, something that is neither normal nor rational.

Trump’s incessant lying is obscene. It is a collapse in morality; it is an ethical assault.

This notion that Trump is damaging the sanctity and purity of truth, that truth in the Trump era operates on a floating scale, that for the Trump apologists truth has become a minor inconvenience, should have us all objecting in earnest.

It seems odd that we have to defend the merits of truth, and yet we do. We must.

This is not simply about a flawed man, this is about the function of our democracy and American positioning in the world. How is one supposed to debate policy with someone who almost never tells the truth? How can a liar negotiate treaties or navigate international disputes? Without truth, everything falls apart, or more precisely, nothing can be established.

I vacillate between rage and sorrow that our country has come to such a pass. And yet, what is done is done. America made a colossal mistake, and it cannot be easily undone.

It is cold comfort that most of the country now believes that Trump isn’t a steady or moral or compassionate leader and half believe he isn’t honest, according to a Fox News Poll released last week.

But that acknowledgment doesn’t change the fact that we must develop a societal strategy for protecting the true in a post-truth world, and the first step is that we must never stop saying: Donald Trump is a liar.

I agree with the author -- I, too "vacillate between rage and sorrow that our country has come to such a pass".

[GrumpyGran]

15 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, “A descision is not finalized Blah, blah,blah,blah,blah. We will make an announcement on Tuesday.”

More accurate.

I did not realize that there was a large number of immigrants in the conservative religious community. Probably cause I don't go to church. And certainly not a conservative church anymore.

So this seems like a problem. Another misconception by his base?

[GreyhoundFan]

Another home run from Jennifer Rubin: "Something is seriously off about this president"

Spoiler

President Trump in three very different settings over the past few days reminded us how unsuited he is for the job. Increasingly, his presidency is defined by blatant lies, an empathy deficit and a frightful lack of ability to navigate through dire international crises. Each has been on display.

In the lies department, none quite measured up to his accusation that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. All but cloddish sycophants like Sean Hannity knew this was preposterous. On Friday evening (when else?) the Justice Department acknowledged in a court filing that there are no records “related to wiretaps as described by the March 4, 2017 tweets.” Presumably, some taxpayer money and government personnel were diverted to track this down, which in and of itself is reprehensible.

In this case, Trump’s actions are unforgivable. Trump’s crude effort to throw the country and investigators off the trail in the Russia scandal (like his lie about tapes of conversations with James B. Comey) is indicative of a man for whom facts are fungible and no lie is too ridiculous to deploy to protect himself. He’s bluffed and blustered his way through decades of real-estate dealings where he was virtually never held to account. Now, lies upon lies (more than 1,000 in seven months) have piled up, rendering his utterances automatically suspect, at least for the more than 60 percent of voters who keep telling pollsters he is not honest. His lies now entail adverse political consequences and legal peril, both of which increase by the day.

Then we are reminded that Trump does not think and act like normal humans. He grins and mugs his way through a do-over visit to Texas to visit victims of Harvey. Soon things take a bizarre self-congratulatory tone. “It’s been very nice. It’s been a wonderful thing. As tough as this was, it’s been a wonderful thing,” Trump said. “I think even for the country to watch and for the world to watch. It’s been beautiful.” The word he was looking for, perhaps, is “heart-breaking.”

In the midst of a tragedy — in which the media behaved in exemplary fashion — he finds it necessary to denigrate reporters. (“Think of it, almost 11,000 people by going into winds that the media would not go into,” Trump said. “They will not go into those winds, unless it’s a really good story.”) The language of empathy is foreign to him. His unhinged narcissism deprives him of the ability to convey warmth or genuine emotion. (He is either furious or gleeful, the former when he feels victimized and the latter when he feels vindicated.) He remains the most tone-deaf modern president.

And most worrisome, we see in his reaction to North Korea’s possible hydrogen bomb test his inability to maintain for more than one scripted remark a serious, sober tone that inspires confidence among our allies. The Post reports:

In a pair of tweets issued Sunday morning, Trump wrote: “North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. … North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”

Trump also delivered an admonishment of sorts to South Korea, saying that “appeasement with North Korea will not work” and suggesting that more severe steps must be taken to influence Kim’s regime.

In addition to threatening to pull out of a trade deal with South Korea (now of all times?), Trump seems unable to show solidarity with friends or avoid feeding the cycle of warnings and threats. His over-the-top public rhetoric does not intimidate Kim Jong Un; it appears to provoke him. Making empty, vague threats only diminishes America’s credibility and leads our allies to fret as to whether he’s so unstable and undisciplined that it will lead to a confrontation that does not stop with angry words.

One is left, still, agog at Trump’s dishonesty, narcissism and inability to project the calmness and discipline we expect from a president. Those who thought he’d grow in office or who perpetually think he’s “pivoting” or “becoming presidential” have engaged in dangerous delusion. One wonders how long we can muddle on with a president this unsuitable without provoking a constitutional or international calamity.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A scorching freshman summer leaves Trump politically damaged"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — After a summer of staff shake-ups and self-made crises, President Donald Trump is emerging politically damaged, personally agitated and continuing to buck at the confines of his office, according to some close allies.

For weeks, the West Wing has been upended by a reorganization that Trump has endorsed and, later, second-guessed, including his choice of retired Marine Gen. John Kelly as chief of staff. The president recently lashed out at Kelly after a boisterous rally in Phoenix, an incident relayed by a person with knowledge of the matter. In private conversations, Trump has leveled indiscriminate and harsh criticism on the rest of his remaining team.

Seven months into his tenure, Trump has yet to put his mark on any signature legislation and his approval ratings are sagging. Fellow Republicans have grown weary of his volatility, and Trump spent the summer tangling with some of the same lawmakers he’ll need to work with in the coming weeks to pass a government funding bill, raise the country’s borrowing limit and make a difficult bid for tax overhaul legislation.

“He’s in a weak position,” said Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax and a longtime Trump friend. “A lot of the Republican establishment has not been supportive, his poll numbers are down and he has spent most of his early presidency appealing to his base while most presidents would be seeking more consensus.”

That sentiment was echoed in interviews with 10 White House officials, Republican operatives and others with close ties to the president. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose private conversations with the president and his staff.

Some White House officials believe Trump did find his footing during the response to Harvey, which they say has given him an opening to demonstrate presidential leadership. Trump has eagerly promoted the federal government’s response and recovery efforts, and on Saturday was making his second visit to the region in a week.

The White House has asked Congress for an initial $7.9 billion in emergency aid, a request expected to win quick approval.

During an Oval Office event Friday, Trump struck a rare unifying tone: “As Americans, we know that no challenge is too great for us to overcome — no challenge.”

But the government’s largely well-received handling of the storm has not soothed Trump’s own frustrations, according to those who speak with him regularly. Trump told one associate he missed his old life in New York. And he’s become increasingly focused on the prospect of losing support among his core supporters — the voters he once said would stick with him even if he shot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

“I don’t think it’s a worry or a concern as much as it’s a reality,” Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to the president, said of Trump’s preoccupation with his base. “It’s a reality that he understands politically.”

Polls show Trump losing a bit of ground with some of his core constituencies. A Fox News survey released last week put Trump’s overall approval rating at 41 percent, and notably cited a 7 percentage point drop among conservatives and a 9 point drop among whites without a college degree, one of Trump’s strongest voting groups.

The recent reorganization in the White House has done little to determine the ideological course of Trump’s presidency or shed light on how he will approach the looming showdowns in Congress.

While strategist Steve Bannon, who repeatedly preached to Trump the importance of fulfilling his campaign promises, left the White House shortly after Kelly’s arrival, the president has made aggressive moves on some of the issues Bannon promoted. Trump said he would shut down the government next month unless Republicans give him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and he issued a controversial pardon for former Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona. Trump is also considering rolling back deportation protections for young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children, a step he previously intimated to top advisers that he would rather avoid.

Some Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, are urging Trump to keep those immigration protections, and longtime allies are encouraging him to think beyond the wishes of the voters who pack Trump’s raucous rallies.

“Steve Bannon got the president and a lot of people believing they had to fulfill a checklist number of promises. I don’t believe his supporters require him to do that,” Ruddy said. He added that as long as Trump appeals only to that group of voters, he will be focused only on “a fraction of conservatives, a minority viewpoint.”

Kelly’s mark on policy and the direction of the administration remains uncertain. He is not viewed as particularly ideological, though White House officials praised his work putting in place Trump’s travel ban and other immigration policies when he ran the Department of Homeland Security during the first six months of the administration.

So far, Kelly has largely focused on tightening up West Wing protocols and ousting staff that he deemed problematic or unproductive. He moved quickly to limit the flow of information to Trump from some of the news sources Bannon promoted, including Breitbart News, where the conservative provocateur has returned after leaving the White House.

Trump developed a deep respect for Kelly during his tenure at Homeland Security. But he’s chafed at some of Kelly’s attempts to limit his access to information or former campaign officials, who became accustomed to frequent, easy access to the president. Some Trump advisers outside the West Wing believe the relationship between Trump and Kelly is inevitably doomed, given their dramatically different personalities and styles.

But there is no sign that another shake-up is imminent, and Trump has sought to quiet speculation in the media about an emerging rift.

“General John Kelly is doing a great job as Chief of Staff,” Trump said Friday on Twitter. “I could not be happier or more impressed.”

It's interesting that Ruddy would say publicly that the TT is in a weak position. He's regularly one of the biggest supporters.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump told workers that the system is rigged. Now he’s showing them just how much."

Spoiler

On Labor Day, we’re supposed to be honoring the people who do the work that keeps the United States going, which makes it a good time to look at where workers are and what they can expect from the current government in Washington. And while nobody with a brain in their head expected that President Trump would be a great friend to workers, some were naive enough to believe his populist rhetoric and hope that he might not be quite as hostile to them as a different Republican might be. Well the results are in, and it turns out that he’s the most anti-worker president in memory.

It’s all the more cruel because as a candidate, Trump correctly identified the anger and disappointment so many people feel about the contemporary U.S. economy, where the vast bulk of the benefits goes to those who are already wealthy and millions struggle to get by. The system, he told them, was “rigged” by those who already have wealth and power, and they believed him because of what they saw in their own lives and communities.

As Trump went around the country in 2016, he promised to turn back the clock to the days when factories were humming and factory towns were growing — and said he’d bring back all the coal jobs to boot. It was a cynical hoax, because the economy of the 1950s and 1960s for which he had such praise was made possible not only by a technological era that is far behind us, but by U.S. labor unions — unions that are under relentless assault from Trump’s party. Those old-fashioned factory jobs, where you could start without much in the way of education or experience and earn good wages and strong benefits, negotiated for you by the union, are largely gone. If you can find a manufacturing job today, chances are you won’t be represented by a union, and your employer will say, “This is what you’ll get. Take it or leave it.”

Job growth, often treated as the clearest measure of the economy’s strength, no longer captures the true economic picture. Job creation has been strong since the recession ended — under former president Barack Obama about 16 million jobs were created since the recession’s trough, and unemployment was at only 4.4 percent in August. So finding a job isn’t the problem; it’s whether that job will enable you to support a family and build a future.

When it comes to manufacturing, the American economy has essentially adopted the Southern Republican model of development, where states and localities beg a factory to come in with the promise of huge tax breaks and a low-wage, docile workforce that will be happy for any job at all. And overall, Americans find themselves as the only advanced democracy without paid family leave, where too many get no paid vacation and not enough jobs have room for advancement.

That’s true not just in the industrial Midwest but everywhere. You can see it in this extraordinary New York Times article by Neil Irwin profiling two women who started as janitors at companies that defined innovation in their respective heydays. Gail Evans began working at Eastman Kodak in the early 1980s, in a janitorial position with vacation benefits and support for workers wanting more education to improve their skills. She got her college degree and eventually rose to become chief technology officer of the entire company. Marta Ramos cleans floors at Apple today, but she’s employed by a contractor and has virtually no chance of getting any permanent position at Apple, let alone rising up in the company.

That difference is the result of enormous and complex changes that range across the entire economy, changes that one president can’t reverse. But what has Trump done to help ease the burden on workers and expand opportunity? Here are a few things:

• Tried to take health coverage away from millions of low-income workers
• Revoked an order by Obama requiring large federal contracts to go only to companies that weren’t guilty of violating labor laws
• Nominated to be labor secretary the head of a fast-food company notorious for its abuse and exploitation of low-wage workers (the nominee later withdrew)
• Appointed anti-labor nominees to the National Labor Relations Board
• Moved to undo the Obama administration’s regulation expanding overtime pay for millions of workers
• Proposed to cut the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health by 40 percent
• Pushed back regulations forcing companies to protect worker safety and inform workers of hazards
• Argued in court that employers should be able to force workers to give up their right to file class-action lawsuits
• Reversed the Obama administration’s crackdown on for-profit education scams that saddle people with worthless degrees and huge debt
• Promoted “right to work” laws that hamper unions’ ability to organize

And now we get to the centerpiece of the Trump administration economic plan: A gigantic tax cut for the wealthy and corporations! Of course. On one hand, Trump keeps saying that the economy is doing spectacularly, regularly issuing triumphant tweets about the latest stock market high and saying things like “I’ve created over a million jobs since I’m president.” On the other hand, he says that we absolutely must save the economy, and only this tax cut can do the job.

It’s the same argument that Republicans always make, and it’s just as false as it was the last time we tried it, in the George W. Bush years. So Trump, populist hero, has a message for workers: The only help you’ll get from me is whatever trickles down after I give a big fat check to your boss’ boss, Wall Street bankers and wealthy heirs like my own kids. Did I tell you that the system is rigged? Oh, you bet it is.

The NYT article linked in the quote is wonderful, and very eye-opening.

[onekidanddone]

Brothers from different mothers.

Israeli PM sheds statesmanlike persona as scandals mount.  Oh and Bibi's wife has just been indicted 

Quote

JERUSALEM — With a slew of corruption scandals closing in on him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dropping what remains of his statesmanlike persona in favor of an angry nationalism that’s popular with his base.

Casting himself as an innocent outsider, the long-serving prime minister blames Israel’s old guard “elites” for the array of inquiries into his financial conduct. He has been lashing out against the media and an all-powerful “left wing” for supposedly conducting a witch-hunt against him, while associates have taken to sniping at the court system and police as well.

Recent days’ headlines have been dominated by arrests of Netanyahu confidants, a court ruling forcing him to reveal phone records, leaks from inside the investigation and indications that his wife Sara will be indicted for fraud.

With each new complication Netanyahu seems to grow more bellicose.

Last week he visited a West Bank settlement and vowed never to evacuate any settlements on occupied land — his latest indication of backing off from a past pledge to pursue a two-state solution to the long conflict with the Palestinians. “We have returned here for eternity,” he said. At his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu pledged new roads and other infrastructure projects for the settlements.

Netanyahu has also pledged to expel tens of thousands of African migrants who managed to enter illegally before Israel fortified its border with Egypt several years ago. At the Cabinet meeting, he spoke at length about the supposed suffering of residents of south Tel Aviv who live in poor neighborhoods alongside a large population of African migrants. He even visited the neighborhood twice — including an undercover mission that allowed him to view conditions firsthand.

“We have already removed some 20,000 illegal infiltrators, whose place is not here,” he said. “The suffering is unbelievable and the future implications of the burden on the state of Israel ... require action now.”

His comments were triggered by a Supreme Court ruling last week that Israel could not indefinitely incarcerate migrants to pressure them to leave, and a resulting uproar among some nationalists.

Netanyahu also held a boisterous rally recently at which he lashed out at the “fake news industry,” apparently borrowing a page from U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom he is close.

Though he has dismissed the suspicions against him as “background noise,” they have piled up at a dizzying pace.

The first investigation reportedly concerns allegations he improperly accepted lavish gifts from wealthy supporters, including Australian billionaire James Packer and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. A second investigation reportedly concerns Netanyahu’s alleged attempts to strike a deal with publisher Arnon Mozes of the Yediot Ahronot newspaper group to promote legislation to weaken its main competitor in exchange for more favorable coverage.

Netanyahu has been questioned in these cases, and police say they suspect him of being involved in bribery, fraud and breach of trust. One of his closest former aides has become a state’s witness against him.

Another investigation has engulfed his close associates and dominated news in Israel. The probe relates to a possible conflict of interest involving a $2 billion purchase of German submarines. Netanyahu’s personal attorney, who is also his cousin, represented the German firm involved and is suspected of trading his influence over the prime minister in return for a hefty cut of the deal. A former Cabinet minister and top former navy and security officials have been questioned by police.

Erel Margalit, a lawmaker from the opposition Labor Party who has traveled to Germany on his own to investigate the submarine case, said Netanyahu should have resigned already and claimed the prime minister’s “combative” behavior toward public institutions was damaging to the country’s democracy.

“He has been doing things that are creating smoke screens and noise to take people’s eyes off the criminal issues,” he said. “It is very worrying because it implies or suggests that he is carrying out this kind of behavior because of his personal issues against the state.”

In another embarrassing blow, a court forced Netanyahu to reveal the number of phone conversations he held over the years with his political patron, American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and the former editor of Adelson’s pro-Netanyahu newspaper, Israel Hayom.

The disclosure of the dozens of phone calls has raised suspicions that Netanyahu himself was dictating headlines and the paper’s overall editorial bent — another potential legal complication.

Over the weekend, police arrested a former chief of staff suspected of accepting bribes, fraud, breach of trust and conspiracy. According to one report, Netanyahu’s wife Sara is headed toward an indictment for fraud regarding their household expenses.

His Likud party and coalition partners are sticking with him for now, and his public approval ratings remain largely unchanged, despite virulent opposition from many on the left. Unless he is indicted, he is unlikely to face any serious demands to step down.

But Yoaz Hendel, a former spokesman for Netanyahu, said the prime minister is feeling the pressure and is now turning to his base.

“Netanyahu was always above the fray and maintained a statesmanlike appearance,” said Hendel. “This is the fight of his life and that can rattle anyone, especially someone like him with a historical perception of himself.”

 

[fraurosena]

Can Congress learn a thing or two from what they did back when Andrew Johnson was president?

Impeaching Trump is a long shot. There’s another way to protect the country.

Spoiler

With the impeachment and removal of President Trump a long shot at best, there is another way to provide the country some protection from our unfit president: congressional government. The idea may seem far-fetched in this era of the “imperial presidency,” but there have been times in the nation’s history, especially in the decades after the Civil War but also to a lesser extent during the 1920s, when Congress ran the show on many critical matters and the president dared take no action without the approval of powerful committee chairmen.

The clearest example of this, and the one most relevant to the current situation, was in 1865, when a Republican Congress seized control of federal administration of the defeated South from then-President Andrew Johnson. A Tennessean who saw himself as the defender of Southern white supremacy, Johnson refused to pursue the agenda of the Radical Republicans who wanted to break the power of the white ruling class in order to ensure the rights and the physical safety of newly freed blacks. When Johnson refused to compromise, Congress took charge. For some months, Congress wielded control not only over national policy but also over its implementation by the military.

Congressional power even reached into the Cabinet. The secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, shared Congress’s aims and carried out congressional policies in the South, not Johnson’s. When Johnson fired Stanton, the House voted to impeach him. Johnson escaped conviction in the Senate by one vote — thus showing the difficulty of removing a president even in extreme circumstances — but for some months Congress controlled the most important national policies and during that time prevented the president from undermining the achievements of the war.

There’s no reason Congress could not do the same now. On some issues, it already has. On two important policies — sanctions on Russia and health care — a working majority of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate has already thwarted Trump. Another bipartisan majority appears to have formed against Trump’s threat to shut down the government unless he gets significant funding for a wall along the Southern border. In fact, on any number of issues, there are enough anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate not only to block the president but also to push their own policies contrary to the president’s — as was the case with Russia sanctions.

Congressional government would not have to address every question. On matters where Republicans and Democrats sharply disagree, there could be a truce or partisan business as usual. But on matters where they both see a threat to the nation’s interests — from the president’s encouragement of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and racist, law-breaking local government officials, to his appeasement of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to his efforts to impede criminal probes — Congress can wield the power of the purse. It can prevent a secretary of state from destroying the United States’ diplomatic corps. It can provide support to officials who refuse to carry out irresponsible and dangerous directives. It can find some compromise on a few fiscal matters to prevent a demagogue from undermining the U.S. economy by defaulting on the debt.

. In 1865, Congress established a bipartisan Joint Committee on Reconstruction to review and formulate policy toward the former Confederate states. Today, one or more joint committees could be formed to oversee those areas necessary to protect the country from the president’s most dangerous excesses — a joint national security committee headed by the chairs and ranking members of the foreign relations, armed services and intelligence committees, for instance. The virtue of this arrangement would be that Congress would not merely react anew to each new threat. It would have a body in place that would be ready to respond, one that carried greater weight than individual committees and would therefore be more effective in deterring dangerous presidential actions.

Could Republicans possibly agree to such an arrangement? The party’s leaders should at least think about it. Trump ran against them in 2016 and is now once again firing up his base to attack them. Party leaders do have another option besides being Trump punching bags — depriving him of as much power as possible while they can. It’s a risky strategy, but a little bravery in the short term might pay off later. Is there any bravery to be found in Congress? Or as the great Radical Republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens asked in the spring of 1865, “Can’t we collect bold men enough to lay the foundation for a party to take the helm of this government and keep it off the rocks?”

Alas, with so many cowards, I don't think there is much bravery to be found in Congress.